


Eye For An Eye

by JulianGreystoke



Category: Borderlands, Tales from the Borderlands - Fandom
Genre: Hurt, Hurt/Comfort, Left Behind - Freeform, Lost - Freeform, Oneshot, Pandora - Freeform, Prosthetic Limb, Rhys in pain again, Short Story, Story, Tales from the Borderlands, after Jack, chapter 5, game, injured, mention of rape, telltale, what happens
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-11
Updated: 2016-03-11
Packaged: 2018-05-26 03:45:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6222373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JulianGreystoke/pseuds/JulianGreystoke
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>SPOILERS for final chapter of Tales From The Borderlands</p><p>Rhys is alone, abandoned on Pandora with no arm, no eye, and finally no Handsome Jack in his head.  He's in trouble.  Until he is found by a scavenger named Spin who might be able to relate to his issues.  Will poor, beleaguered Rhys finally have something good happen to him?</p><p>~ I was always curious A) how Rhys picked up the new eye and arm the next time we see him in game and B) how he got his prosthetic eye and arm in the first place.  So with this little stand alone I killed two birds with one stone, while beating up on Pandora's punching bag, Rhys.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Eye For An Eye

Eye For an Eye

He was sitting in the big chair looking out over Jack's expansive office. Only now it was his office, and it was filled with trophies from his exploits. He need only flick a switch and three lackeys would appear, one bearing coffee, another his favorite donuts and the third simply there to sing his praises. Rhys smiled leaning back, surveying his domain. He'd made it. He'd finally made it.

The door to the office opened and in strode Sasha wearing a beautiful dress and a big smile. Like she couldn't possibly be happier to see anyone. She was looking at him like she would at a new gun. He reached out towards her as she moved gracefully across the room. He noticed a flower tucked behind her ear. A gift from him.

Then he felt a whirring sensation from the chair. Gears spinning somewhere in one of the arms. Before Rhys could react a mechanical limb reached up from the chair. At the end was a sharp point meant to drive itself into his temple and access his brain. Jack was after him again. Rhys yelped as the robotic arm lunged, and he found himself unable to dodge. The probe had driven itself into his temple and pain ripped through his head. His biotic eye went dark, and just before vision faded in his good eye he saw Sasha, pointing at him and laughing. She'd thrown the flower to the floor and stomped on it.

“Hey. Hey, buddy? You dead?”

Rhys moaned. Slowly, achingly, he came to his senses. He was face down in the dirt. Why was he always doomed to fall face down? His head was screaming with pain, as was his right arm. Wait. No. His arm was gone. Correction, his arm was right in front of him, no longer attached to the socket, but rather being held in someone else's hands. For a blinding moment he thought it was Jack. Jack somehow made flesh. But then his mind cleared as he tried to raise his head.

“This yours?” There was a woman standing before him. Her scuffed boots weren't far from his nose. She squatted down, waggling his severed arm in front of him.

“Nnnngh,” was all Rhys could manage to say. His mouth was full of grit and a little blood. Blood was running into his good eye and he had to keep blinking.

“It's a really nice one too, or at least it was. Looks like you did a number on it.” the woman rocked back on her heels. She had an accent, but Rhys couldn't identify it. Perhaps if his brain had been working on something less pressing than how much every part of him hurt. He remembered falling from the sky, then walking in the wreckage of the crashed space station he had helped make its swift and unexpected landing on Pandora. He'd faced Jack one last time and freed himself, violently, from the madman, but now, face down on a slab of concrete he wondered about his own sanity.

“Well, clearly it won't work for you any more. I best keep it,” the woman said. She tucked his ruined biotic arm into a large satchel at her side. Then she peered down at Rhys with what he hoped was a look of consideration, not malice.

“I-” Rhys tried again, then coughed up a mouthful of dust.

“Settle down there, kid. You'll do yourself an injury. Who attacked you? They still around? They were pretty stupid not to take this arm. Quality parts.”

“I- I wasn't attacked, exactly,” Rhys managed. He moved his remaining arm around. At least it didn't hurt much. Nothing to the pain in his temple and empty eye socket. He gritted his teeth.

“Not attacked?” the woman asked, leaning down to look him in the face. He saw a flash of light. One of her eyes was brown, the other golden. Biotic, Rhys recognized. Her face was small and sharp-chinned which gave her a slightly petulant look. Her eyes were almond shaped and her bleach blond hair was cut very short and spiked. Around her biotic eye were was a cluster of ugly little scars.

“I was and I wasn't,” Rhys grumbled, pulling in his arm and pressing against the ground, trying to bring his knee up under him. His body was used to him having two arms and the muscles of his stump of a shoulder reacted. The simple shrugging motion almost toppled him again and he snarled as he fought back the fresh agony.

“Easy there, buddy,” the woman said, though her voice lacked compassion. Instead there was amusement as she watched him struggle. Of course there would be. She was clearly Pandoran. “Were you or were you not attacked, why are you wearing a suit and alligator boots, and why is your high quality arm full of holes and not attached to your body? Oh fuck, your eye too?” Now there was concern, just a little.

Rhys levered himself into a sitting position and leaned against an upright slab of metal, trying to catch his breath. It was disorienting to see the world through only one eye, and such an inferior one at that. Rhys reached up and gently probed the empty socket where his cybernetic eye had been. His fingers came back bloody.

“Damn. Someone really did a number on you, eh buddy? You one of them corporate types from the space station? I didn't know them people needed robotics. Are you all healthy and shit up there?” The woman asked, shooting little glances around at their surroundings. Still wary. She was a slender, muscular thing, her bare arms were etched with deep scars which Rhys thought might have been burns. She wore several satchels and pouches on her person and they clattered together with each motion she made.

Was he from the station? Technically, he supposed. He reached carefully for the place where his arm had been. The metal socket where the arm was supposed to attach was still there. He winced as a fresh stab of pain shot through his chest. “I came from the station, but I'm not... from there. One of them...” His words were slurred and his head was foggy. He wasn't making sense, but he couldn't order his thoughts. “Jack wanted to hijack my brain,” he chuckled a little insanely. “Hi-Jack. Get it?”

“Suuuure,” the woman said raising an eyebrow. “Look, buddy, I don't normally do this, but you seem pretty fucked up. You need some help?”

Did he need some help? He was alone on a planet that wanted everyone on it dead. He'd fallen from the sky, fought with a madman inside his own head and plucked out his own eyeball. Did he need help? His voice was a little sob when it left his lips, “yes.”

The woman looked as though she was trying not to laugh. “Fuck. Look, I've got to finish my salvaging run, but I'll come back and pick you up in a few. Sit tight, guy.”

“Couldn't escape if I wanted to,” Rhys answered drunkenly. He started to tilt, his back sliding down the piece of metal. To his surprise the woman reached out and righted him.

“Ok, buddy. Hang out. I'll be back.”

Rhys watched the woman stand up and walk away. For a while she was nearby and he could hear, if not see, her rummaging around through the wreckage. Then he lost track of her and he drifted between utter panic at being alone in the smoldering hulk of a fallen space station, and a half formed hallucination of a soft bed and having all his pieces attached to his body again.

Just when Rhys had about given up on the strange woman and was wondering if he could stand up, she was back. She appeared out of his blind spot and made him jump and yelp. The woman laughed, a sharp, bark of a sound that showed her teeth in a catlike smile. “You're high strung, eh buddy?” she said, moving beside him and throwing his arm over her shoulders. “Come on. Upsy,”

Rhys clenched his teeth as he fought to keep his legs under him and what food he had in his stomach where it belonged. It felt like a shard of glass was lodged in his temple the world swam. Fortunately the woman, who turned out to be at least a head shorter than he, was also as strong as a scag and just as dogged. Three times he almost brought them both to the ground as he staggered, dizzy. Each time his strange savior managed to keep them upright. Then she finally swung him onto a scarred motorcycle with wide wheels and laden down with more bags of who knew what. Before Rhys had time to ponder what a death trap this vehicle might be she was in front of him. She unceremoniously wrapped his arm around her slim waist and before he knew what had happened the pair rocketed off through the wreckage.

Rhys closed his remaining eye and tried not to think about their speed, or how this stranger was maneuvering around the many obstacles at such speed. He reminded himself that he had no other choice. The next person to find him might be a bandit or worse. Then he had to try not to think about this woman being a bandit. Along with her salvage Rhys had noticed at least two guns and a bladed weapon hanging from her bike. All he had left to his name were his boots and possibly his organs. Great. He wondered how much his insides were worth on the black market.

“Here we are,” the woman announced as the bike skittered to a stop. Rhys tried not to tip off of it and into the sand. He opened his eye and looked around. They were in small town, just about as ramshackle and run down as he might have imagined. The woman had pulled her bike to a stop behind what Rhys guess to be a seedy bar of some description. “I have a little apartment back here This is my brother's place.”

“Mmmm,” said Rhys as though he felt at all confident of the situation. This was the part where she gave a whistle and her friends appeared and finished him off.

“Look,” the woman turned, resting a fist on a hip, “I'm going out of my way here and I don't normally do that, so if this is some kind of elaborate con on your part-”

“Believe me,” Rhys hissed between clenched teeth as a fought back another wave of pain and swayed on his feet. “This is not a con. I don't think I'm even capable of conning someone when I have all my limbs.”

The woman gave a snort of laughter. “Alright. Just know that my brother will murder you if you try anything.”

“Right,” Rhys said, trying very hard in that moment not to vomit.

“Okay, buddy, you're starting to turn green. Let's go inside,” the woman said, extending a hand and guiding him towards a door with peeling paint that had been green in its heyday.

The woman's home was small, but not unpleasant. She'd done a lot with a little, Rhys noted in spite of himself. He wondered how many of the eclectic furnishings were stolen or scavenged. A door opened at the other end of the room. “Spin, you're back. What took you?”

The man who opened the door had to duck to pass through it. He was a six foot something mountain of muscle and tattoos. “Oh god, really? You're bringing home strays now?”

“I found him in the wreck and he looked so pathetic I couldn't just leave him. Plus, he had a really nice arm. He might have people.”

“You got people, fella?” The huge man moved towards him and Rhys felt his eye roll back in his head.

“Shit! Catch him!” The woman shouted as Rhys's world went black.

~~~~

Rhys woke with a dry little sound, half word half whimper. “Wha-?”

“Steady there, fella. Be still.”

Rhys's eye snapped open and he found himself face to face with the giant of a man he had seen before. For a panicked moment he was certain he was about to have his organs harvested and moved as if to struggle. “Hey, buddy, you must be cool.” a firm voice instructed and he felt someone grab his foot.

Rhys looked down and realized he was laying in a bed. The woman's bed, he guessed. He was propped up on a few pillows and the big man seemed to be investigating the socket where his missing arm should be. The woman was sitting at the end of the bed, reaching down and giving his foot a firm squeeze. An oddly reassuring gesture he hadn't known he needed.

“Whoever attacked you did a number on this joint, fella,” the big man said. “But I can fix it. It should take another arm just fine. I don't like to think about what they dug out of your temple, but the eye should be replaceable too.”

“Extended memory and data core,” Rhys said, still feeling fuzzy. Everything still hurt, but much less so. He wished the giant would stop prodding his shoulder, but he didn't dare complain.

“Damn, really?” the woman cocked an eyebrow. “Expensive.”

“I suppose,” Rhys grimaced.

“Sorry,” the big man said, much to Rhys's surprise.

“No uh... no worries. Thanks for not harvesting my organs.”

The woman snapped her fingers. “Harvesting his organs! Why didn't we think of that? Jake, put him back under!”

Rhys laughed, but it was a half-hearted sound edged with nervousness. “Settle, buddy,” the woman said, squeezing his foot again. “We're not gonna hurt you. Especially if you've got money someplace and you're feeling grateful.”

“Ok,” the big man, Jake, said, sitting back. “I did what I could for the arm. I can probably even whack something temporary together in the shop for you, so you don't have to wander around all lopsided.” The man stood and Rhys noticed that both his legs were robotic. Well made, but clearly constructed of cheap materials. “If you want better than what we can do, we know some people.” Jake leaned down, holding out a gigantic hand, “nice to meet you. I'm Jacob and this is my little sister, Spin.” Rhys's hand was completely swallowed by his and the woman at the end of the bed gave an awkward little little wave in greeting.

Jake shuffled about for a few moments, picking up some tools. “I bound up your head. It was still bleeding.” he announced.

Rhys reached up and gingerly touched the clean bandage over his eye and temple. He let his hand fall back to his side. This had to be another hallucination. Could Pandora really be doing something nice for him? It was about fucking time, he thought darkly. Jake moved off towards the door which Rhys guessed must lead to the bar portion of the building. At least if the noises from beyond were any indication.

He was alone with 'Spin'. She had stopped holding his foot and instead sat on her chair at the foot of her bed and studied him with her sharp, bicolored gaze. “So, what the hell did happen to you, buddy?”

“Rhys.”

“What the hell happened to you, Rhys?”

“I... I'm not sure how to explain it without sounding like a crazy person.” Rhys admitted.

“This is Pandora,” Spin said. She stood up and walked over to her table where she had spread some of the smaller salvage items, including, Rhys noticed, his arm. It was in pretty bad shape. “So,” she tilted her head towards him, “Spill, stumpy.”

“Making fun of an armless man?” Rhys said, feeling a little of his old sass returning. “You remind me of someone.” He missed Fiona, he realized. He wondered what had happened to her. She'd fled the station without him. He'd told her to stay. To wait for him, and she'd left.

“Hey,” Spin snapped her fingers, “Where'd you go? You alright? Did Jake miss a concussion or something?”

“I was just remembering a friend.”

“A rich friend?”

“I'm afraid not.”

Spin heaved a dramatic sigh, complete with eye roll, “Come on, guy, what happened to you and your arm and your eyeball. Who attacked you?”

“Handsome Jack.”

“No fucking way.”

“Any lie I could come up with would never do justice to the truth. It was Handsome Jack.” before he knew what he was doing Rhys was spilling his story to this strange woman. She was intrigued by his tale, she stopped tinkering with his arm and pulled her chair closer to him. She asked few questions and seemed to, with some effort, keep her sarcastic remarks to a minimum. Rhys left out a few key details about Gortys and the Vault Key, guessing that he didn't need another Pandoran bounty hunter trying to use him to get to a Vault. Still, the story was long, and when he finished Rhys's throat was dry and his head was throbbing again.

“Whoa.” Spin rocked her chair onto it's back legs. “I wanna call bullshit, but if it is you spun the world's most entertaining story, so you get a free pass. You say it was Handsome Jack taking you over, I believe you. Just a thought though, maybe be more careful about what you plug into your brain next time?”

“Thanks for the tip,” Rhys mumbled, looking down at his hand which rested in his lap.

“And your buddies just left you?”

“Well, my robot sacrificed itself nobly, but yeah, everyone else left.”

Spin made a scoffing sound. “That's Pandora, kiddo.”

Rhys grimaced, “please don't call me kiddo. Jack used to-” he coughed. His throat felt ragged, like he'd been gargling metal shavings.

Spin moved around for a moment then appeared at his side with a glass of water. He almost reached for it with the arm he didn't have before he caught himself. A twinge of pain that wasn't physical rushed through him. He missed his arm like an old friend. They'd been attached for so long. He took a few long droughts of the cool water and stopped coughing. “Thanks.”

“No problem,” Spin set the cup to the side on her table. “You good?”

Rhys hesitated. To try to be masculine with this girl? Fuck it. “No. No I am not.”

She shrugged. “None of us are, are we?” Her expression softened. “You should rest.”

Rhys couldn't help but agree. His body was a tangle of pain and weariness. Dusk had come and gone. Rhys thought of a night sky without Helios station hovering like a sentinel. His life up there hadn't been happy, but it had been his. For a little while he'd felt like he had some control. These days all illusions of control were ruined. The last time he wanted to take charge he'd had to rip off his own body parts. Rhys eased himself down onto the bed, reveling in the feeling of being warm and comfortable. Then he had a thought. “This is your bed isn't it?”

“Well yeah,” Spin made a face at him making it clear she thought he was dim. “But there's some guy sitting in it. I'll survive.”

Rhys didn't really know what to say to that so he finished settling in and was asleep in seconds.

~~~~~

Rhys felt better the next morning, though his head still ached and he felt dizzy if he tried to move too fast. Jake instructed him to remain in bed for the day. Spin went out for a while to sell salvage and when she returned she was carrying another arm. This one was silver and looked simple enough in construction, but it seemed clean and well made. “I got you something,” she held out the arm towards him. “Until you can get yourself something better. I know a guy who does eyes too, but he's pricey.”

“How about someone who does eye patches?” Rhys asked ruefully. “I'm flat broke.”

“Good for you,” Spin chuckled. She pulled a chair up beside the bed, tugging away the cloth Jake had wrapped around Rhy's shoulder. “Mind if I hook her up?”

“Go ahead.” It would feel good to have a second arm again, even if it wasn't his.

Spin began carefully hooking up the cables from the arm to the ports inside the socket of his shoulder. It felt odd, but didn't hurt. He watched her face, followed each scar towards her own biotic eye. “Can I ask how you got that?” he asked.

“You mean how someone like me could afford it?”

“No! Of course not, I mean-” Rhys fumbled.

“Relax, buddy,” Spin's abrupt laugh was as startling as ever. “I know what you meant. You're so literal. Anyway, this is Pandora. Bad things happen.”

“Did you lose your eye at the same time your brother lost his legs?”

“Yeah,” Spin shrugged as she leaned in, sticking out her tongue in concentration as she worked. “We were running a job for an old boss of ours. Jake was twelve I was ten. Things went south. Jake took the worst of it because he was so determined to keep me safe. I lost the eye and got these-” she set the arm down on her lap and lifted the hem of her shirt to reveal her midsection. More burn scars wrapped up and around, stretching towards her ribs. “But I saved these,” she held up a hand. The scars on her arms stopped near her elbows. Her hands were unmarked. “See, pristine. That's how I can to touchy little jobs like tweaking the arm I'm about to attach to you.”

“You were doing jobs that dangerous when you were ten?” Rhys asked, alarmed.

“You really aren't from around here, are you?” Spin when back to work, but shot a glance up towards him, wrinkling her nose slightly. “I have news for you, everyone on Pandora is into dangerous shit. It's just a matter of how dangerous. Jake and I stuck to smuggling after the accident. Stayed out of the bigger cities. We've had a decent life.”

“Decent,” Rhys muttered. Where he was from very few people lost whole limbs, let alone ten year olds.

“What happened to you, though?” Spin asked as, without ceremony, she tilted up the new arm and slammed it into the socket, then rotated it slightly to click it into place. Rhys snarled in pain as he nerves reconnected. His good hand grabbed a fistful of blankets. He almost waited for his implants to start feeding him data about the new limb before he remembered there would be no such data any time soon. Spin flexed the arm as Rhys braced against the sharp reactions of his body accepting it. “Nice tats by the way.” She said.

“Thanks,” Rhys said between gritted teeth. He was a little proud of his tattoos. Not many people on Helios had them. They weren't exactly forbidden in the dress code, but they were frowned upon.

“My brother has so many to hide his scars, but I like my scars. They freak people out,” Spin explained, taking out a tiny tool and working on the elbow join of Rhy's new appendage. A few seconds later he realized she could feel her working. His body was accepting the arm. The connections were taking. He exhaled the breath he hadn't known he'd been holding. “Makes guys keep their distance,” Spin went on as though this were perfectly ordinary conversation. “Best way not to get raped, be uglier than the next woman.”

Rhys was once again at a loss for words, so he focused on his new arm and watched Spin work. She'd been right about her hands. They were nimble and skilled. Rhys had had a few tuneups back on Helios, but they were nothing to how fast this girl worked. She had no time card to pad, he supposed. With a jolt he was able to feel his new arm all the way to his fingertips. He opened and closed the hand, experimentally and a little smile found its way to his mouth. He shoulder still throbbed but he carefully lifted the arm from Spin's lap, holding his hand before his eye he flexed it, extended the arm, turned it, checked the motion of the wrist.

“Oops, bit sticky there, hang on,” Spin grabbed his arm and pulled it back to her lap where she began working on the wrist joint. Rhys tried not to think about whose arm this had been before he got it. “So,” Spin said, not looking up. “How'd you get your special parts? Some horrible accident? Some corporate mother type not watching you closely enough and you wandered into a wood chipper?

Rhys pulled back his lips into a half grimace half smile. “I was born without the arm.”

“Really?” Spin's head popped up and she squinted at him, her own biotic eye flashing.

“Yep,” Rhys shrugged, happily aware that he could shrug properly now, with both arms attached again.

“Stop moving,” Spin scolded. “So, you were born without an arm?”

“Yeah. I was born in space on a big old transport cruiser headed for a planet near Pandora.

“They say kids born in space are dreamers. You a dreamer, Rhys?”

Rhys thought for a moment, “yeah. I guess I am a little bit. Or I wouldn't go along with so many crazy schemes. Or get so upset when people ruin them. Anyway, I think I was three when I got my first biotic arm. My parents wanted me to feel 'normal'” he made air quotes with his free hand.

“Damn,” said Spin, not looking up this time. “That must have hurt like hell. With you having no arm to begin with, the work they would have had to do. The nerve connections they would have had to rewire.”

“I don't know. I was out the whole time.” Rhys explained, watching Spin's clever hands at work. They moved so fast he sometimes couldn't even tell what she was doing. He had to trust that whatever it was it was helpful. “I've had a series of arms as I grew up, culminating in the one I stabbed to death.”

Spin snorted with laughter. “Stab it you did, my friend.” She sat back setting her tools aside. “Try again?”

Rhys raised his hand and flexed the wrist. The joint moved flawlessly. He continued flexing his arm around until he took it too far and a nerve twinged in his shoulder and neck. “Ouch!” he stopped and pulled the arm to himself, cradling it instinctively.

“It'll be a little tender for a few days. There's a little swelling because someone ripped his old arm out of the socket instead of disconnecting it properly.”

Rhys focused on his breathing for a few moments as the nerves in his shoulder continued to fire. They seemed to be in league with the ones leading to his eye socket because the whole side of his head throbbed. Spin got up, moved away from him, then returned with a bag of frozen peas which she settled onto his shoulder where the joints met. The sudden touch of cold did feel pretty good. Rhys took the peas with his good hand and held them to the bandage over his eye socket.

“Eye bothering you?” Spin asked. Was that a hint of concern in her voice? “You did a number on that one too. What the hell did you use, glass?”

“Yes,” Rhys sighed as the coolness of the peas spread across his face.

Spin made a hissing noise through her teeth. “Not smart.”

“I didn't have time to think about it,” Rhys pointed out. As much as he was hurting, he was feeling pretty happy about his new arm. Not that he would ever admit it, but the old on was in desperate need to a mechanic. Sand had gotten into a few of the joints and it didn't flex as fluidly as it should.

“How about the eye?” Spin asked, putting her tools away in a metal ammo box. “Born without that too?”

“No,” Rhys chuckled. “The eye was my choice. I started working for Helios the minute I turned eighteen. It was my dream job.”

“Good to know your were always a crazy person,” Spin said, grinning. Her eyeteeth were a little pointier than other people's. It gave her a fox-like look.

“When I started I was determined to get ahead as fast as I possibly could. Plus, people were already calling me 'Robot' because of the arm. For a little while biotic enhancements were a fad and all the big corporate stooges were getting them. So, not one of be left out, I went in to get something. Anything that would get me ahead. I left three days later, after recovery, with a new eye, and a cool little data processor in my brain to enhance my memory and work in tandem with the eye so I would be able to scan, hack, work, all from the comfort of my own brain.”

“Ok, that is kinda cool.”

“Right?!”

“All my eye does is see,” Spin grumbled good-naturedly.

“Well damn, what good is it then?”

They laughed together for a few moments then settled into a quite sort of amiable companionship. Spin made a late lunch and Jake came back and joined them to eat. If Ryhs was honest, he thought this was probably the happiest he had ever been on Pandora. Still, his mind drifted to the faces of his friends. Fiona, Vaughn, Sasha. He knew he couldn't stay here with these good people. He would have to strike out and try to find Vaughn at the very least. Poor guy was probably in big trouble out there. Not to mention Rhys had a few choice words for Fiona. Leaving him to die on the space station. Some friend.

Even with those dark thoughts spinning through his head Rhys fell asleep that night feeling pretty contented, clasping his hand with the cool metal of his new one.

~~~~~

A few days later Rhys was up and about, feeling considerably better. He did have a tendency to bump into things though. His blind spot seemed like something he would never learn to compensate for. He did, however, make himself as useful as he could. He stayed out of the bar, but while Spin was off on her scavenge runs he tidied up her little house, cleaned her tools and made a meal. He liked feeling useful, if a little domestic. He'd had enough adventures for a little while so making sandwiches felt like a lucky reprieve.

That afternoon Spin came back with a wiry old man who had a handle bar mustache that looked like it was planning a full face takeover. “This is Gregor. My eye guy,” Spin explained.

The man hustled Rhys to a chair and unceremoniously pulled the bandage away from his eye socket. “Your eye guy?” Rhys asked, fixing his gaze on Spin over the old man's shoulder, trying to ignore this stranger poking around in his eye socket. “I thought you said I couldn't afford-”

“You've been paid for,” the man said in a surprisingly strong voice for someone who looked like a stiff breeze could take him away.

“Paid for?” Rhys looked at Spin again, cocking an eyebrow.

“Nope. Sorry, buddy. It wasn't Jake and me. We don't have that kind of cash to throw around. One eyeball was enough,” she gestured to her own face. Her prosthetic eye glinted golden.

“Then who-?”

“Some big fella. Wearing a mask. 'Course most people in these parts do it seems,” the 'eye guy' said, turning to rummage in a bag he had set on the table. “The girl told me you gouged your old eye out with a piece of glass? That must have hurt.”

“Yes. Yes it did,” Rhys said, watching the man with a touch of suspicion. “So, some big guy wearing a mask shows up and tells you to give me a new eye and hands you the money?”

“That's the long and short of it,” Gregor answered. Then he grabbed Rhys's chin in a grip like a vice. It was all Rhys could do not to yelp. He could see another tool headed for his eye socket and he tried not to think about it. “I guess you got a friend a friend out there.”

“That can't be right,” Rhys said, hoping his tone sounded joking. “I don't have any friends.”

“This is the thanks I get for saving your scrawny ass,” Spin folded her arms and pouted dramatically.

“Scrawny?”

“Yes, scrawny. Have you seen you? I've seen scarecrows with more meat on them.”

The old man turned back to his bag rpducing a fresh false eye trailing a line of thin optic cable. “I notice you had one of them brain implant dealies,” he said, waggling his fingers to show what he thought of 'brain implant dealies'. “Well, when I get done yer eye will be for seeing and not much else.”

“That's fine,” Rhys said. He had no idea where he was going to get his hands on a new implant, but at the moment just being able to see fully would be enough for him.

“You did some damage to the interface when you removed the old one,” Gregor grouched, taking out a tiny file and going to work. The sound of the little file scraping set Rhys's teeth on edge. “By the way. The fella who paid for yer new peeper said he'd meet you up in a couple of days, once you recover.”

“Alriiight,” Rhys said slowly, pondering. Who the hell would come around paying for new eyeballs? It couldn't have been any of his friends. They didn't have any cash. Well, he knew Fiona would take any money that wasn't nailed down, but certainly she hadn't accumulated enough for this.

Gregor began carefully feeding the fine optic cable into the eye socket. Rhys felt the little jump of electricity as his body reacted to it. His jaw clenched involuntarily. Spin moved over to him and put her hand on his shoulder. “I got you, buddy. This is going to hurt like a son of a bitch.”

“Like the lady said,” agreed Gregor. “Brace yerself.”

No amount of bracing could have prepared Rhys for the pain that ripped through his head. It felt like someone had rammed a long knife into his eye as the nerves reconnected, greedily seeking the new cables. He grabbed Spin's hand and doubled over, his other hand pressed to his new eye.

“There we go. One brand new peeper installed. Give her a try.”

Rhys thought that his eyes were watering too much to try anything. Still, with tremendous effort he raised his head. The room swam and tilted and he knew he was just on this edge of passing out. He was glad he'd grabbed Spin's hand with his regular arm because he was already crushing her fingers. But, he thought as he blinked furiously, fighting back against the pain, there was no more blind spot. Half of his world wasn't cut away like a missing puzzle piece. He could see. The eye had worked. He might have cheered, but instead he leaned over the side of the chair and threw up. Spin grappled a small waste bin over to him.

“That's normal,” Gregor reassured them, stepping back so as not to get any sick on his boots. “Take two of these pain pills and send word if anything goes wrong. Which it won't. I've been installing eyes for thirty years. Never had none of 'em go bad.”

Rhys, still doubled over, spat out the bile on his tongue as he thought that people on Pandora probably never lived long enough for their eyes to malfunction. He heard the old man shuffle to the door and leave.

“You fucker,” Spin's voice. “You vomited on my shoes.”

“Sorry,” said Rhys thickly, leaning back, chin tilted towards the ceiling, trying to get his breathing under control.

“You going to let go of my hand, or are we dating now?”

“Sorry,” he said again, more quickly, pulling his hand away from Spin's.

She grunted in annoyance, then reached for his jaw and turned his face towards her. “Not bad,” she said, approvingly. “That must have smarted though. I'll get your peas.”

~~~~~

Four days and several bags of frozen peas later Rhys was ready to go. Spin and Jake gave him some new clothes they had dug up from somewhere. Rhys was just glad not to be walking around in his nasty, blood crusted suit any more. His new friends loaded him down with enough food to last him a week and a map that looked recent enough to be somewhat useful. Spin offered to take him as far as the mile marker on her bike, but he waved her off. “Thanks, but I should go alone. You've got your lives to get back to. I've got.... whatever joke I'm calling a life today.”

“We'll see you around, yeah?” Spin asked, clearly trying to hide sadness on her sharp features.

“If I live, I'll swing back here as soon as I can. This is the only place on Pandora were people don't seem to be total shit heads.”

“We try.” Jake chuckled.

“Take care of that arm,” Spin warned. “It'll need a tune up and you had better come back and see me for it. Seeing as I'm the one who installed it.”

“Will do.” Rhys extended a hand and shook Jake's gigantic one. Then he shook with Spin and at the last second pulled her in for a hug. “Thanks for salvaging me.”

“No problem,” she grinned that slightly manic smile of hers. “You weighed less than half the metal I carted back with me that day.”

“Thanks.”

She let him go and Rhys began to walk. He was actually in good spirits as he left the little town behind, turning a few times to wave to Jake and Spin until they were out of sight. New arm. New eye. No more Handsome Jack in his head. The air was pretty clear (for Pandora anyway) and he was on his way again. Yes, things were marginally looking up. Until someone sprang from behind a boulder. A few minutes later and he was wrapped up like a burrito and being dragged along by a stranger in a mask.


End file.
